


Happy Birthday

by flurblewig



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-06
Updated: 2010-03-06
Packaged: 2017-10-07 18:24:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/67912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flurblewig/pseuds/flurblewig
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>He'd said he didn't remember when he was born, so she'd picked a date for him and called it his birthday. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Birthday

It had just been a joke, at first. He'd said he didn't remember when he was born, so she'd picked a date for him and called it his birthday. Really, she'd just wanted an excuse to give him a present. So yeah, it had been nothing more than a childish, lovesick thought. But somehow, it had stuck.

The first year in Rome, she'd still bought him a card. She stared at it for a long time, chewing the end of her pen distractedly. In the end, she just wrote two words; Sorry, Spike. Sorry for the things she'd said, and even more for all the things she hadn't.

It had all been so - complicated. At first, there had been the problem with him being all evil and everything. And then, when he wasn't, there had been the whole Glory trying to kill her and end the world thing. And, of course, there had been Buffy. He never saw her when Buffy was around. And then - well, then there hadn't been Buffy, and that had been worse.

Then Buffy came back, and while that was wonderful, it was also - well, yeah. Complicated. Dawn still didn't know the full story of what had gone on between Buffy and Spike and she didn't think she'd ever want to, but she knew it had been violent and ugly and painful. He'd hurt her sister, and that was one thing that had seemed very, very simple. She'd tried to hate him, and for a while she thought she'd succeeded. But then she often got things wrong, didn't she?

The last year in Sunnydale had been one long blur of fear and confusion. In a house full of people, she'd never felt so alone. He'd been so - broken, and she hadn't known what to do. What to say. So in the end, she'd said nothing. She'd wanted to, but she'd kept putting it off, kept thinking that there would be a better time later. A less complicated time. But it had never come.

And she wanted to tell him all that, tell him all the things she'd meant to say. Tell him how much she cared. But even now, she couldn't. So she wrote 'Sorry, Spike' on a card covered with kittens in bobble hats, and her tears smudged the ink until even that was unreadable. She sealed the envelope and then pressed it to her lips. And then, she burned it.

*

The next year, she'd deliberately stopped herself from writing him another card. She needed to get over this, needed to move on. So she ignored the date completely, and she smiled and laughed and tried not to even think about him.

About who, ha ha.

And then, there had come the phone call.

"He's alive," Andrew had said, in the kind of reverential tones normally reserved for the announcement of a new Star Wars film.

"Huh?" she'd said, not really listening. Because it was, after all, Andrew. "Who's what?"

"Spike. He's alive. I saw him. I touched him. Dawn, he's alive."

But Spike hadn't wanted her to know that. Hadn't wanted her to see him. She spent a long time trying to work out what that meant. She spent even longer trying to work up the courage to just get on a plane and go to him, whether he wanted her to or not. And for once, thank whatever goodness there was in the world, she didn't leave it too late.

The Wolfram &amp; Hart building, when she got there, was barely standing. She didn't know what had gone on, but it had obviously been brutal. She had to trawl through a lot of carnage on the surrounding streets, and she saw things that she knew would give her nightmares for years to come, but she found him. Beaten worse than she'd ever seen him - worse than she would have thought it was possible for anyone, even a vampire, to survive - but somehow, he had. She made calls, used those special emergency numbers that she'd imprinted on her brain but had hoped she would never need, and the machinery of the new Council had rumbled into life.

They tended his wounds, fed him blood intravenously and tried to piece together what had happened. Buffy came, and they sat by his bedside in silence. Dawn had no answers, or comfort, for herself, let alone her sister.

In the end, it was Charles Gunn she cried most for - a man she'd never met. A man who'd lived, and fought, and died, and who she'd never even known existed. What was it all for? Why did they do this, for people who would never even know what had been done? She asked Spike, but he just lay on the bed unmoving, and gave no sign that he heard her at all.

*

His third birthday was the best. Willow and Giles found a mystical cure, and this time when she kissed him he didn't lie immobile and unresponsive. He pulled her to him, his arms going around her and his hands tangling in her hair. His lips were cool and firm and felt soothing and exciting and so right against her feverish skin.

"I love you, you know" she said, without embarrassment or shame. "I always have."

He smiled, and kissed her, and said "I love you too, Dawn," and she was happy.

That moment became one of her favourite memories. Of course, it wasn't real. But then nor were any of the memories her own birthdays, were they? All those happy family moments, all the presents and the parties and the love: they were nothing more than a carefully constructed story, one that was only real inside her head.

Most of her life was a lie - just a piece of wishful thinking. So really, was this any different?

*

The year after that, Willow and Giles really did find a mystical cure. He woke up.

And by the time she raced to his side, he was already gone.

"I'm sorry, Dawnie," said Willow, a tentative sympathy in her eyes. "We couldn't - he wouldn't stay."

No, of course not. She should have known that. No-one did, did they?

She bought a card anyway. Wrote nothing in it but her name and two kisses, and climbed to the top of the hill at the back of the Council's estate. She held it out at arm's length, and felt the wind try to whip it from her fingers.

"Happy Birthday," she said, and let it go.

 

-end-


End file.
